We’ve all been there. You helped facilitate a great brainstorming session with your client. You’re celebrating your swift methods of guiding a room full of otherwise political combatants to find common ground, to agree on their mission as a business. And as you look across this new horizon of possibility, you look down and realize you are standing in a sea of sticky notes.

You know what I’m talking about: The aftermath of a brainstorming session. It’s as if the ball just dropped in Times Square and you’re swimming through the air, thick with confetti. But these ain’t no confetti. These are moments of brilliance. These are ideas that are going to help your client climb to the top of the competitive heap.

And then there’s the hangover. Those dozens and dozens of sticky notes aren’t going to magically digitize. It’s your job to do something with them. And then you have your own stroke of brilliance: Microsoft Excel. Yes. I will put all of these into a spreadsheet, you tell yourself. And I can create a fancy algorithm to rank them for priority, you continue thinking. No, I’ll just Google it! There’s gotta be a spreadsheet that someone else has created!

And then you sigh.

Whether this situation has happened to you on client work, or with your internal team, or maybe through a product development process you manage, there are many inherent problems with this. Excel is where many things go to die, and ideas for improving your business, your product, your thing, are no exception.

This is why I’ve been working with my friends at Refactr to create Haystack MileMarker, a tool that helps companies capture ideas, prioritize them and create plans to execute on the best of them. We believe there needs to be a much easier way to capture all of the great ideas that organizations and their customers have. We believe there has to be a better way to organize them and create greater visibility of them. And most importantly, we believe there needs to be a better way to prioritize what’s good and what’s not so good. We believe that Haystack MileMarker is the answer.

As we’ve thought about how to position Haystack MileMarker, I’ve tried to convince myself that “idea management” isn’t the right category to stick it in. Sure, it’s got idea capture and organization. And, heck yeah, it’s got the ability to score or vote for ideas. Planning and promotion of ideas, you ask? Sure, we’ve got that covered.

But it is so much more than “idea management.” It’s a product management tool. It’s a software roadmap tool. It’s a community feedback tool. It’s an employee feedback tool. And, yes, it’s an idea management tool.

So, how do we wrap up all of that goodness into one phrase that perfectly describes it? Well, it’s safe to say that…we’re open to ideas.

(BTW – Our public teaser site is up (http://getmilemarker.com) and Haystack MileMarker will be ready for beta by early December January. Email me if you want to know more or if you want to participate in the beta.)

I saw this chart from eMarketer that seems to define customer retention, or loyalty, as “up-sell, encourage repeat purchase.” Is that really what retention and loyalty is all about, getting existing customers to buy more? The answer: maybe.

I believe that a clear objective for any marketer is to grow business with existing customers. As they say, your cheapest marketing is what you direct at existing relationships. So selling more to them makes complete sense. What this article doesn’t tease out is how marketers are *engaging* with their existing customers, regardless of whether or not they are directly up-selling or capturing repeat purchases.

There needs to be a healthy tension between keeping customers buying—and buying more—and keeping them engaged. Higher engagement, which can lead to greater trust, will lead to more buying, or at least consistent buying. A retention strategy needs to be one that clearly articulates how the use of different channels will encourage prolonged engagement so that when the time is right, your customer thinks of you first.

Striking a balance is key. If you can find that perfect mix of engaging and up-selling to those who are likely to buy more and keeping those who are likely to continue purchasing from you engaged, then you may just have a winning formula.

Another day of the financial crisis. Another day of Detroit auto execs trying to paddle their way out the sinkhole their stock has fallen deeply into. Everyone knows things need to change. GM now has a new CEO. Chrysler wants to jump into bed with Fiat. Sounds to me like the same old companies trying the same old tricks. It’s time for something different.

What the auto industry needs is something completely disruptive. Something that forces the American auto industry—and the American consumer—to realize that there are different ways to think about what the automobile can be. Just like Apple telling the consumer in 1998 that disk drives are no longer necessary, sometimes we need new technology—new ways of thinking—forced upon us. Maybe Apple should get into the auto game.

Think about it. What does the American auto industry need so badly? Innovation. Apple’s got that. Design. Apple’s got that. Efficiency. Apple’s got that. Price. Apple’s got that.

Imagine if Apple were to design the automobile that defines the next century of auto manufacturing. The cars would look killer. They would run extremely efficiently, with inventions and innovations that keep challenging the industry to find new ways of powering automobiles. And when something goes wrong, you don’t go to the mechanic, you go to the genius, who could probably fix it remotely, or at least let you schedule an appointment at 3:30 on a Sunday, if neccessary.

And then think about the bells and whistles. iTunes access to download music from your stereo. Oh, and you could just sync to your iPod on the spot, too. How about remote start? I could start my car from my iPhone. That would be nice on a cold, Minnesota morning. Bluetooth for hands-free calling, which would just be standard, not a $500 add-on. And, of course, you’d also get all the navigation features that you get with the GPS packages, but standard. The list could go on and on. It would be like having an iPhone or MacBook with wheels.

My guess is that Apple probably wants to stay as far away from the auto industry as it can. But I challenge them to consider the possibility. Because we all know, if the future of transportation is hinged on what Detroit can come up with, we might be better off investing in a horse and buggy.

I’ve heard that newspapers are dying. This interests me, because I can’t get over the fact that the real issue is the paper, not the news. The reality is that we printed news on paper because there wasn’t anything else. But, of course, now there is.

News, or journalism, is clearly alive and well. Those in the business of discovering and distributing news to the public need to rethink how they deliver news and still get paid for it.

So, while I’m stating the obvious, I believe that newspaper organizations need to pay more attention to their value proposition. Their value is in the content. Their value is in the journalists. If they don’t have valuable content or journalists who the public can trust and rely upon, then they are dead. But if they have those two things, there has to be opportunity to monetize that mix.

We have invented new ways of delivering content that don’t require paper–the Web, the iPhone, G1, and other mobile devices, and Kindle. Up to this point, publications like the Star Tribune continue to try to figure out paper and they’ve invested heavily in their websites over the past decade+. And, sure, they’re on Twitter and other social media sites now, but they still haven’t found a way to move users to other mediums and make money in the process.

And there’s agreement that something new has to emerge. Steve Rubel, via AdAge, writes:

Like the iPod before it, the Kindle is a critical emerging device that actually encourages consumers to pay for content. When Apple launched the iTunes Music Store, some were skeptical that people would shell out cash for music they could snag for free from file-sharing networks. They did. Read the article

How about that subscription through Kindle? Or how about an iPhone app? It may mean that the economics of the business need to change. But what’s worse: To disappear completely or at least attempt to find ways to engage your audience through new mediums?

Companies are constantly looking for ways to improve their online presence. They want to optimize. They want to enhance. Some want to completely redesign. And some should redesign.

But, given the current conditions of the economy, suggesting a redesign isn’t always an easy sell. Unless you have an organization with plenty of resources—people, money, and time—you need to find creative ways to do what you can with less.

One approach to this issue is to separate design and content. I know, this isn’t always easy, as there is a symbiotic existence between the two. But consider for a moment—regardless of the information design, color palette, and general aesthetic—that you could dramatically improve engagement of your traffic if visitors had a clearer idea of the value you offer.

Re-tooling the content on your site can provide many benefits. As a marketing organization, you’re focusing your message. You can improve the throughput of traffic and impact key conversion opportunities. You may even improve your search engine rankings. And, this can be done inexpensively (relative to a full-blown redesign) and with virtually no technical roadblocks.

I don’t mean to over-simplify. Your site may genuinely be broken and any optimization of content is like trying to polish a turd. It’s wise to take a deeper dive into the perceived issues with your site. Do you need a redesign because your inner-designer is sick of staring at the same home page day in and day out? Is your boss convinced that your competitor’s site is so much “flashier”? Or are you receiving authentic customer feedback telling you that things just ain’t working right?

Each of these can be valid, but they must be validated. Know the issues by soliciting input. Conduct a content audit to understand what you have and what you need. And, consider the possibility that a focused rewrite of content may be just what you need for some short-term satisfaction.

My name is Bill Galfano.
Interactive Marketing/UX Professional
http://www.linkedin.com/in/bgalfano
http://twitter.com/galfano

I work at Magnet 360, an agency network providing marketing, communications, and technology services to Fortune 1000 clients.